What all this means is that the best cooking medium for a
steak is plain old oil. At least to start. Adding butter to the
pan a minute or two before you finish cooking is not a bad
idea. This is just long enough to allow a buttery flavor and
texture* to coat the meat, but not so long that the butter will
burn excessively, producing acrid undertones.
There are some who keep bottles and bottles of various
oils on hand for different cooking projects. I limit my oils to
a more reasonable three. One is a high-quality extra-virgin
olive oil that I use for flavoring dishes. One is the peanut oil
I use for deep-frying (see Chapter 9), and the third is the
canola oil I use for pretty much all of my other cooking
projects. Canola oil has a reasonably high smoke point,
making it great for searing, but, more important, it has a
very neutral flavor and is inexpensive, with neither the
“corniness” that comes with corn oil or the high prices that
come with safflower, grapeseed, and many other oils.
Q: How often should I be flipping my steak?
There’s a problem when it comes to cooking steak, and it
has to do with your two conflicting goals. You see, for most
folks, the ideal internal temperature of a finished steak is
around 130°F—medium-rare. This is the stage at which it’s
rosy pink, tender, and juicy. But you also want a deep-
brown, crisp, crackly crust, a by-product of the Maillard
reaction.
A few years ago, food scientist Harold McGee published
an article in the New York Times that mentioned an
interesting technique: multiple flips. It goes against all
classical and backyard wisdom—we all know you should